SD Union-Trib/Mexico Asked to Review LNG Complaints

SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE

By Diane Lindquist
STAFF WRITER

October 7, 2005

A trinational panel has ordered Mexico to address complaints that the country did not comply with its own laws protecting endangered and other species of plant, animal and sea life when officials granted Chevron a permit to develop a liquefied natural gas project near the Coronado Islands.

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation, an agency created by the North American Free Trade Agreement, issued its request this week to Mexico's environmental ministry, the Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, known as Semarnat.

The action was in response to a complaint brought in May by a coalition of U.S. and Mexican environmental groups that contend the project poses a threat to an endangered bird species, Xantus' murrelet, and other forms of life at the Coronado Islands, located eight miles from San Diego.

"This is the type of response we should be getting because the Coronado Islands are one of the region's most important biological resources," said Serge Dedina, director of the Imperial Beach environmental group Wildcoast, one of the groups filing the complaint.

"This is the only way we have to point out the problems," Dedina said. "Semarnat is on a fast track to approve every LNG project in Mexico. . . . There is no environmental policy in Mexico at all."

Although Chevron is not a party to the action, spokeswoman Nicole Hodgson said, "We believe Semarnat followed a well-defined and comprehensive process, and we do not anticipate any changes to the environmental authorization."

Semarnat officials did not respond to a phone call and an e-mail seeking official comment.

The CEC request comes as media outlets in Mexico are reporting that the government wants to cut back its contribution to the Montreal-based commission and have suggested that Canada and the United States do the same.

Articles have said that Mexican officials have told the CEC that the country will cut its $3 million annual contribution to $1.2 million a year.

Subsequently, however, Mexican officials characterized those stories as a misunderstanding about payments that are in arrears.

Each of the three nations that support the commission can reduce its funding contributions, CEC spokesman Evan Lloyd said yesterday. And no one country is obliged to contribute more than the others.

"We are examining the budget for the CEC in light of the fact that there is some uncertainty about Mexico's contributions for 2005 and 2006," Lloyd said.

Semarnat has 60 days in which to respond to the commission's request for information, after which the environmental commission will decide whether to proceed with development of a factual record, which would include "an exhaustive exam of specific allegations," he said.

If the CEC determines Mexico did not comply with its environmental regulations, it has no power to force the country to do so, Lloyd said.

Chevron spokeswoman Hodgson said the company "will do whatever is necessary to prevent any unacceptable impacts on the surrounding ecosystem and that includes the habitat on the Coronado Islands."

Diane Lindquist: (619) 293-1812; diane.lindquist@uniontrib.com